Ornamental Grasses

Ornamental Grass is a very popular style of landscape plant that has a world of uses and landscape enhancement for your garden!

Ornamental Grasses have it all! - Grasses are colorful, hardy, waving motion, white noise, display all-season interest, and are easy to maintain! The texture, form, and colors of Ornamental Grass are difficult to find in any other plant!

Types of Grasses

Ornamental Grasses are commonly divided into two categories, warm-season and cool-season Grass.

Warm-season Grasses begin growing quickly in late spring and early summer, whereas cool-season Grasses begin greening up in early spring but slow down when summer's heat kicks in, only to perk back up in the cooler fall!

Popular cool-season Grasses include Fescues, Blue Oat Grass, and Autumn Moor Grass. Popular warm-season Grasses include Northern Sea Oats, Hardy Pampas Grass, Fountain Grass, and Switch Grass.

There are many varieties of Grasses including Bluestem, Feather Reed, Fountain Grass, Maiden Grass, Pampas, Sedge Grasses, Switch Grasses, and many more!

Using Grasses in the Landscape

Landscaping with Ornamental Grass is easy! The waving, flowing motion and swaying of Ornamental Grasses provide four seasons of beauty! Any sun garden will gain significant interest with these incredible perennial plants!

Not just wonderful seasonal accents with late-summer to fall plumes that can extend into the winter months too, but also fine-textured long, flowing foliage can have incredible fall colors too!

The plumes not only add beauty to the garden, but can be used in floral arrangements, dried crafts, as bird-friendly forage, and winter interest.

Add Sedge Grasses to Rain Gardens, Bluestem to Xeric Gardens, and the fluffy Muhly Grass to Cottage Gardens. Tall Grasses look fantastic as backdrops to garden beds, and as screening around seating areas, and perfect additions to Prairies, Native Plantings and Meadow Gardens!

Low-growing and flowing Grasses like Tufted Hair Grass, and Japanese Forest Grass look great as edging and flowing throughout Rock Gardens too! The flowing forms produce white noise as they rustle in the breeze and are perfect for Sensory Gardens, Asian-inspired designs, and meditation nooks!

Caring For Ornamental Grasses

Ornamental Grasses are easy to care for and maintain and they are relatively disease and pest-free! Take care to not over-fertilize the Grass, as too much fertilizer promotes excessive growth, and then the Grass becomes unmanageable and flops over.

For the strongest growth and the most plumes, plant Grasses in full sun and in well-drained soils. Most Grasses are quite drought tolerant once established, but be sure to water new installations regularly and provide a 3-4 inch layer of mulch around their root systems. 

Early spring is the time to prune down the dead growth from the previous season. Some of the taller Grasses may require a pruning saw or trimmer if the Grass blades are very stiff. Cut the large clumps of grass about 6 inches above the ground. Smaller Grasses can be cut about 2 inches above the ground.